Manchester City, The Billions and the Holy Grail of the Champions League

After the international break Manchester City fans will surely be counting down the days until they can watch their team compete in the Champions League for the first time. The Eastlands outfit have been drawn in ‘the group of death’, with Bayern Munich, Villarreal and Napoli, who are ready to ignore the multi-millions spent by Roberto Mancini’s outfit and look to eliminate the big spenders from Europe’s top tournament at the first time of asking.

Of the four English sides in the competition, City have the toughest group, with a representative from both Italy and Spain coupled with the mite of German powerhouse Bayern. The Group A campaign starts on September 14th with a home fixture against Napoli, but the pivotal point in deciding City’s fate could well be the back to back fixtures against Villarreal in the middle of the fixtures. Home wins are essential, as the Allianz Arena, El Madrigal and San Paolo will pose difficult destinations for the English side.

Napoli exceeded expectations in 2010-11 by finishing ahead of the likes of Lazio, Roma and Juventus to finish third in Serie A; they were actually in the thick of it and had a chance to win the Scudetto until their form dipped five games from the end of the season. Walter Mazzarri’s team pride themselves on attack, and have a South American duo upfront that are looking to bring the glory days of when Maradona wore the sky blue back to Naples.

Edinson Cavani finished top goalscorer in the Italian top flight last year, and has an eye for goal that could cause Vincent Kompany and the likes problems, whilst Ezequiel Lavezzi has established himself as a mainstay in the Argentina international squad – both were linked with a move to Eastlands during the summer. Despite their potency going forward, Napoli rely heavily on captain Paolo Cannavaro at the back, and have a tendency to lose concentration. City’s attacking options could be too much for the Italian side to contain, but expect a fiery encounter in Italy.

Villarreal finished fourth in La Liga in 2010-11, meaning they had to come back early to go through the qualifying stages rather than booking a holiday on travelsupermarket.com before the season started. The Yellow Submarine are at a similar level to Napoli; they too have strong attacking options but a questionable rearguard. City have two things to worry about with being drawn against Villarreal; Giuseppe Rossi and El Madrigal. The ex-Manchester United frontman has evolved since his brief time in England and is now a sharp, clinical and dangerous striker. Add to this the cauldron of the Spanish team’s home ground, which has broken away teams in the past; City’s stars must maintain their composure on their visit on November 2nd.

Bayern will be the toughest of the three opponents, and will fancy their chances of winning not only Group A but the entire tournament. Jupp Heynckes has had a strong start to his time back in Bavaria, and Die Roten have ominously dispatched of a number of Bundesliga sides already this season, with a 5-0 win over Hamburg setting the gauntlet down for the rest of Europe.

The Germans have an international cast of superstars of their own, and Mario Gomez is starting to prove himself as one of the continent’s top goal-scorers. Supplied by Franck Ribery and Thomas Mueller, the Allianz Arena outfit have the potential to score goals against anyone. Their downfall in 2010-11 was their defence, which seems to have been strengthened by the summer purchases of Manuel Neuer and ironically Jerome Boateng, who moved from Eastlands six weeks ago – the German side look back to their best.

City fans will accept nothing short of progression through the group, but the draw they have been handed means it will be no walk in the park for Mancini’s millionaires. The three teams they will face should test the English side and give them a few uncomfortable moments, in what should be a baptism of fire for the tournament debutants.

21 Responses to Manchester City, The Billions and the Holy Grail of the Champions League

Evan, we launched a redesign on Tuesday. We’re adding new changes each and every day for the next few days and once it’s all complete, I’ll highlight some of the new features. But already, hopefully you can see how much faster it loads.

I don’t mind the new layout. I think the bit that’s throwing people off is the EPL Talk Network News and EPL news boxes underneath the most recent article. It’s probably a little late to be offering suggestions, but I would say: Move the EPL News piece to the right side bar and eliminate the EPL Talk Network News. I’m looking at it right now, and it seems pretty redundant to have a list of recent articles right about the same list of recent articles. Perhaps you intend to use the EPL Talk Network News for other things (as it seems to be the twitter feed), but it seems a bit of needless clutter at the moment.

Jason, all of the new articles are on the homepage, just like before. I realize the design looks quite different than the previous version, but it’ll take a little while to get used to. The recent comments widget is in the right sidebar showing the ten newest comments added.

i hope that man city fail cos you should not be able to buy trophies which these muppets are doing, anyone who goes to man city do it for the money. thats it. where is it now that players want to play for teams. hail players who reject moves to a makeshift MANCHESTER SHI*TY.

I guess Bayern, Barca, Man U, Chelsea, Real Madrid, AC Milan, and Inter didn’t buy most of their players. Its funny how much the haters are criticizing Man City for what they’re doing when in fact all of the top teams in the EPL have had to purchase the top players so they can make it to the top.

Watch City win this year’s premiership and advance to the Semis in the Champions league. Im sure all you haters will have nothing to say then.

Gaffer, I tried it when I got home.Still blank. I am using Google Chrome, properties box said up to date. Internet Explorer is 9. I am using a PC at home it has Windows 7 at work XP. The link you posted worked.I do actually like the site so far, will be able to tell more after the weekend.

CFCtys, if you or anyone else encounters any problems with the video pages, please let us know. We made some changes and they appear to be working OK now. But if they don’t work (from epltalk.com/video), please let us know what browser and computer you’re using.

Relating to the content of the article, I think City will have an easy time with everyone but Bayern, who they will probably split with. City will show their intentions in the group stage with an impressive showing.